More Projects

The performance based crime bill has been a great success, several
cities have come up with innovative crime reduction programs and
leapt to the front of the line for the biggest shares of federal
crime fighting dollars. Other cities have started copying the
successful programs and are catching up. People all over the country
are impressed with how sensible the idea of simply measuring
performance and getting out of the way has turned out to be.

It is time to add more performance based projects. Perhaps a job
training program which actually tracks the performance of graduates
and makes sure that the programs which continue to get federal funds
are the programs which get people good jobs they can count on for
years to come. Perhaps a drug use prevention program that tracks
success at keeping kids from using drugs, alcohol, and nicotine.
Perhaps a charter school program which actually asks the question
"Are the kids learning useful skills?".

The success of the performance based crime bill needs to be
reinforced with more success in more performance based programs, but
it will be important to keep an eye on the principles of performance
based government. It is all too easy to give in to the temptation to
measure the wrong thing. Our country's founders gave us some mighty
fine performance goals in the preamble of the constitution, and they
are worth reviewing here:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.

Whichever programs are selected to continue the transition to
performance based government, we always need to remember these basic
goals of government and ask, "Does the proposed performance
measurement advance our basic goals?". If the answer is "no", then
the wrong thing is being measured. In the case of the crime bill, the
crime rate is the right thing to measure because reducing crime is
clearly something that promotes the general welfare, and you could
probably make a case for insuring domestic tranquillity and
establishing justice as well. Its a winner all around.

As long as the right goals are selected, the initial pilot program
will soon have a whole collection of additional success stories on
the path to government by performance, and we will be ready for the
next logical step.